Loved ones are mourning a Philadelphia father of three who died after a balcony collapsed on him while he was doing construction work on a condominium building in Sea Isle City, New Jersey.
Jose Pereira, 43, his brother and a third person were working at the south tower of the Spinnaker Condominiums on 3600 Boardwalk around 2:30 p.m. Friday.
Pereira, a construction employee working for a private contractor on the building’s exterior, was on the 7th floor balcony, while his brother and the third worker were on the 8th floor balcony. As Pereira worked, the 8th floor balcony collapsed on top of him, trapping him underneath thousands of pounds of rubble.
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“The balcony collapsed and my brother’s under it,” Pereira’s brother -- who suffered minor injuries along with the third worker -- said in the 911 call. “My brother’s pinned under the balcony! Please! Oh my God! Please hurry up!”
Firefighters from multiple departments, police and multiple Search & Rescue teams all responded to the scene and tried to get Pereira out.
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Captain Matt Johnson of the Cape May County Urban Search & Rescue Team spoke with NBC10 about the challenges the rescuers were facing.
“Stabilizing the slabs below to prevent any further collapse," he said. "Again, we don’t know what caused this collapse to happen so we need to think worst-case scenario, prevent those other floors from collapsing. We’re guessing each floor weighs around 11,000 pounds. So it’s quite a bit of work to stabilize that before we could send our first responders in to conduct a rescue.”
First responders attempted to reach Pereira Friday night but they observed significant cracks in the surrounding area and a slope to the balcony. They then determined that the side of the building was unsafe.
At that point, police said, all residents in the building were evacuated.
The rescue operation then turned into a recovery effort.
“He was crushed underneath the collapse," Sea Isle City Police Lieutenant Jim McQuillen said. "We’ve switched now from a rescue effort to a recovery at this point.”
Police said that they attempted a coordinated recovery plan to breach the outside wall of the building near Pereira's location by cutting through approximately 12-inches of reinforced concrete -- after the seventh floor balcony was temporarily stabilized from underneath.
Once an opening was created in the wall, the concrete slab was lifted by heavy lift air bags and Pereira's body was recovered.
Members of OSHA were spotted on the eighth floor of the building where the balcony once was. Police continue to investigate the cause of the collapse.
“We’re not sure,” Sea Isle City councilmember Bill Kehner said. “This type of accident always has questions to it.”
It’s unknown at this time whether or not the balconies had been previously inspected. Kehner told NBC10 he was concerned about vulnerabilities beyond the Spinnaker.
“What type of other buildings may be in jeopardy of this in light of this? Not only here in Sea Isle,” Kehner said.
Attorney Andrew Duffy, who works for the law firm that handled the deadly building collapse in Surfside, Florida, in 2021, spoke to NBC10 about the similarities between that incident and Friday’s collapse in Sea Isle.
“It’s the constant beating that these coastal buildings are taking from the salt air and it just heightens the safety requirement of having routine inspections,” Duffy said.
A Sea Isle City council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday. Kehner said he plans to ask the city solicitor if anything can and should be done at the local level to tighten up measures related to building inspections in town.
